


you must remember this

by minnominate



Series: better [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Winter Soldier - Fandom
Genre: Amnesia, Frottage, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, flashfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1494316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnominate/pseuds/minnominate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And you remember laying like a knife, keeping your sharp, hungry body up off of the ice-hard ground as best you could and you remember the feeling of a strong, warm arm snaking over you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you must remember this

You remember the smell of wet leather, rain, brown. Mud, tobacco, leather, dark green paint that snapped off into flakes with sharp edges over tin, dents, everything had dents and the mud was cold, the cold came up from the earth but you had to lay down on it anyhow so you lay on your side, a balanced knife. You remember the weight on your boots– the mud sucked on your heels and how it slowed you all down, put a roll and a struggle in your step and how you all bowed their heads and shrugged your collars up over your necks to keep that rain out, trickle slide shiver. You hear the rhythm of it: the trudge of your boots, the hunch in you all, the sway and the creak of leather and the pit pat pit pat of the rain falling. And you remember laying like a knife, keeping your sharp, hungry body up off of the ice-hard ground as best you could and you remember the feeling of a strong, warm arm snaking over you.

–He blinks. He knew that guy. 

You remember this sound like scrape scrape, a hundred legs, a hundred arms rubbing cotton against skin against leather against tin - the clink, the pit pat and the trudge. The ground was hard when he pushed your fingers in through the slippery churned up surface. Packed. A stone. Not like the crumbling soil in a park. City boys. You hadn't known.

–The bit is cutting into his gum. He tastes metal. He is rusting. It's all going away. He crumbles.

No you remember a sound, a smell, sweat and fear and leather and you remember heat on your back, you remember that. He pulled your shirt up, pushed it into a ruck up at your shoulders and you were shaking until that blessed warmth seeped in, skin on skin. You grinned and pushed back into this big strange body. Why? You shoulda gone for your knife.

–It wasn't new. It wasn't new. He knew him. He–

You remember the smell of wet leather, rain, these colours of green and brown - mud and leaves and– the ground was a stone. You were holding yourself on your side, not rocking back until this heat tipped you, rolled you and your guts flipped too. This warm body was yours. He holds you now. You do not reach for your knife. You remember you did not reach for your knife. You never– You–

–He knew him.

You push back and he presses his face into your neck over the rucked up shirt and he's taller now, how? But he's the same, yeah, you feel it and you roll your hips into him the same way you always did and mutter, "Hey buddy," and he swallows his laugh 'cause you both know you gotta be quiet. Tamp it down. He says, "You cold, buddy?" Is that what he says? Is that right? You say, "I didn't eat," and you feel the raw scrapes on your wrists, on your legs. You've been leashed. Behind you he's wriggling, he's working something out of his coat pocket and the leather is creaking. It's a candy bar. A candy bar. You raise up your hand to it - his arm is slung back over you and he's holding it up to your face but you want it in your hand. You close your fingers around the paper and you tear into it with your teeth. It's cold– you can't taste it–but your body knows the candy anyway and you are suddenly desperate. You push it into your mouth. You almost choke on it. Something ripples through him, this heat at your back; it's rage.

You want to say, "How did you find me?" and "What the hell happened to you?" and "What the hell happened to me?" but instead you say, "Are we behind the lines? Why are we stopped?" Because you can't remember. 

–He can't remember why they were there and why they stopped before they got back to camp. They wouldn't have. You don't stop behind the line. You keep marching.

"Nah, it's just for a couple hours. We got casualties. Lay your head down here while you got the opportunity, buddy."

You're out a little way from the others; there are trees around you and a felled trunk rots in the path that leads back to the rest point. It's blocking the wind a little. You had dropped down there 'cause that tree was blocking the wind a little off your back and Steve had climbed in behind and now you're hidden from view and you both scramble– it aint dignified– you scramble into each other, fitting in close and Steve pushes up your shirt and pulls open his own so that–there–you got skin and you know the life in his bones. You both laugh. You laugh! You got a pulse and he's breathing. You breathe together. A warm arm snakes over you and you push back. You roll your hips and you feel his body jerk up against you. You want him against you. You want him in you but you gotta tamp that shit down cause you're only a little way from the others and so you just say, low in your throat, "Hey buddy." 

The earth was so hard. Near frozen. You know cold better now but then it was all new. Steve had pushed your fingers into the surface, one fingertip depth of give and then unyielding packed ground and you stare at his hand covering yours. So familiar and so new–the heft of it. Steve has his arm over you and he's gripped his hand around yours but you drive yourself back into him just as hard. There's nothing soft left in either of you and you realise you don't got to hold back. Steve's body is a wall of muscle and your dick is hard and you're alive. You're both alive and you stuff that candy bar into your mouth so fast you gag a little and that makes Steve grip you tighter and you grind together like he's climbing inside of you. Your heart is pounding. You're panting. You're alive. There's blood running down into your boots. There's a graze along your side and the cuffs have marked you.

He's telling you something. He's whispering into your neck. He made captain. He made history. 

–The blood is in his mouth. The ice is coursing through his veins. He must remember this.


End file.
